Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for controlling zooming of an image capturing apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there are more and more electronic devices that are equipped with image capturing apparatuses capable of shooting moving images such as mobile phones, digital cameras and game consoles. These image capturing apparatuses have an optical electronic zooming function or an electronic zooming function using image trimming so that a user can shoot moving images at a desired field angle and magnification.
Such a zooming function is generally realized by manually performing a zooming operation in accordance with a field angle and composition desired by a user, but it is possible that user operation cannot be made in time depending on shooting situations, causing the object to come out of the field angle. Furthermore, for a user who is not familiar with apparatus operations, performing a zooming operation itself is difficult and it is possible that an appropriate operation cannot be performed. Therefore, there is a possibility that a user misses a shooting opportunity at an appropriate field angle.
In light of these backgrounds, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-211485 discloses an automatic zooming function that allows a user to select the size of an object to be fitted within a screen in advance on a menu screen and automatically adjusts the size of an object to a preset zoom magnification when shifting to a live view screen. Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2013-074454 also discloses an automatic zooming function for automatically adjusting zooming, by selecting one or more person as objects in a live view image, so that all the selected objects fit within a field angle.
The automatic zooming function, with which an image capturing apparatus can automatically perform zooming and adjust composition to be appropriate in this manner, is important especially in terms of preventing a shooting opportunity from being missed.
However, because in the above Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-211485, a user cannot set the size of an object while checking composition in a live view image, the user cannot grasp the impression given from an actual image. Furthermore, even if the size of an object is selected in a menu screen, a shooting opportunity may be missed unless zooming is started immediately. Furthermore, in the above Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2013-074454, a user cannot set the size of an object according to which the object is to fit within a field angle.